Who is the Greatest Player of All Time

[Namaste]

I thought it would be interesting if we have a fairly serious conversation about who is the greatest of all time.

Sure, it's been done before but I don't think we've done it here.



Willie Mays (Happy Birthday, Willie).

I'll give reasons why he's my choice if and when someone disagrees.

I suppose that Ted Williams and Babe Ruth will come up soon in this thread but who knows.

[Ramp]

just to see your reasons...

I'll go with Barry Bonds

[Fritz]

Barry is my pick too.

[Bobbob1313]

I don't think it is Willie Mays. I'm not 100 percent convinced he is the best center fielder of all time (overall), since I'm a huge Mickey Mantle fan. I understand that Mays is probably the greatest fielder of all time at his position, but from what I've read, Mick wasn't a slouch out there either, and a .040 point edge in on base percentage is a lot to overcome.

It's got to be either Ruth or Bonds. Both come with huge asterisks (Bonds = steroids; Ruth = greatly diluted talent pool), however their domination of the leagues they played in was so pronounced that it's hard to ignore them. Ruth never played against a black or dark-skinned hispanic player, however neither did anyone else in the league at his time, and nobody else was close to him when he played. And Bonds almost certainly used steroids, however it was rampant in his time, and again, nobody even touched him when he was in the league.

It depends whether you consider Bonds' defense to be more valuable than Ruth's pitching, and whose asterisk you are most willing to overlook.

I probably lean towards Bonds. One of the best defensive left fielders of all time, a phenomenal base runner, and one of the three best hitters ever (Ruth, Williams, Bonds).

Top-5 position players is probably this for me:
Bonds
Ruth
Mantle
Mays
Williams

[HUGG]

Bonds for me.

[Beef]

I was worried people wouldn't say Bonds because we're not supposed to.

[Bobbob1313]

I think we're of the generation that cares lee about the steroids thing.

I could be wrong, or making an unfair assumption, but I think we all just kind of accept it as a reality of the era he played in.

[Fritz]

Steroids mean nothing to me because everyone did them and they made baseball awesome.

[Mainge]

Bonds.

[Beef]

I think too many people don't accept it. All the Leftys I went to school with who ever talked about baseball thought Bonds was the worst thing ever because he was a big cheater.

Then they called their lawyer dads and had them take their take-home final exam.

[Madman81]

Steroids mean nothing to me because everyone did them and they made baseball awesome.

I'm with this, and with Bonds. If everyone was juicing, who had an advantage? Special hat-tip to those who succeeded as clean players during that era, also (I'm looking at you, Griffey Jr).

[Bobbob1313]

*Maybe.

[Fritz]

Griffey, Jr. being on roids would not be a surprise.

[Ramp]

Not in the least

[Bobbob1313]

And hell, I'd still take pre-roids Bonds over Griffey. Pre-roid Bonds was still on his way to being a top-10 player.